HAVE YOUR SAY DAY

It happened during the Boat Race, a lone protester dived in, swam between the boats,
almost decapitated by highly-educated oarsmen, a literal
meaning to “making headway,” had he not ducked under the blades
in the nick of time. Not a pretty sight, especially at tea time on tv! He was against
elitism, so am I, but I won’t be copying him; it’s a bit elitist to think you have the right to
disrupt anything or everything.

There is a huge risk that groups or individuals Read more »

Sponsored by Paddy Power

All actors do is pretend, movies are never real – not a single dinosaur was actually
in Jurassic Park, nor did any shark enjoy a cordon bleu meal of human leg in Jaws.
Yet advertising regulators seem to think the depiction of “chavs” being shot by a
tranquilizer gun in a Paddy Power ad is offensive and have banned it.

Dan Collins wrote on Paddy Power’s Facebook page “Hope the chavs don’t ruin
Cheltenham like they did Ascot”. An ad made in response, shows a range of chavish
race-goers shot by tranquilizer darts, no blood and gore, true, a little collateral
damage, not exactly, the Cheltenham Chain Saw Massacre! Read more »

Let’s Have a New National Anthem

The Olympics are edging ever closer, many millions expended, lavish athletic and aquatic stadia finished on time, East London regenerated: a new village, media centre, parks and shopping centre, the East End, at last able to stand up to the bloated West, with its’ tiresome Notting Hill types, inferior Westfield and the dull buzz of Heathrow in the background.

I can’t wait for the first Brit to win gold, stand on the plinth, watch proudly as the
Union flag is hoisted aloft – and the dire drone of our National Anthem is played!
Do me a favour, I’d almost prefer to live in West London with the continual noise
of circling planes, than listen to that! It induces as much pride as soggy toast, is as
dramatic as an insipid ending to Eastenders, galvanises us into putting on the kettle
and making a cup of tea.

Would that we had the drama and emotion of France’s La Marseillaise, the pomp Read more »

The Whole Thing Stinks!

Many years ago, I used to know a man called Harry Bart, he was getting on a bit,
in his sixties, I think, he’d been a merchant seaman, had a rugged disposition and
gap-toothed grin, he was active in the local civil defence league. I don’t know what
he would have done had Russia lowered the cold war temperature to freezing and
invaded, he drove a Ford Orion, not a tank!

Harry helped us organise a local Read more »

Weighty Matters

You’re in trouble if you step on talking scales and they say “help”. Those who
go through life in a sylph-like state with a metabolism which, if bottled and sold,
would create turmoil in the markets, challenging and probably eclipsing Google and
Facebook, seem strangely aloof from the struggle: “I’m wiry by nature,” they say, “I
eat what I like, it doesn’t show-up on me.” They have a relationship to scales such as
honest, law-abiding folk, have with the police; nothing to fear, happy they are there,
just in case they might be needed. For the rest of us, it’s a battle, sometimes a war:
Temptation against restraint, gluttony versus well-being, desire challenging self-
control.

Cakes: They’re all around us, everywhere, Read more »